There were no stars in the sky that night; Chibuzor could tell that much from his position as his vision seemed to dim and brighten alternatively. He was conscious enough to regret not backing up the latest designs for the clothing line company he and his girl were setting up; conscious enough to know the police could see what was happening to him but refused to do anything; thinking about how he was alive with nothing worse than a headache and ripped pants to show for his ordeal. He could hear the clatter of plastic on tarmac and tried to sit up.

A light-headed feeling rushed in on him; his stomach rebelled – he quickly lay on his back once again. From the sounds, it didn’t seem the thieves had noticed him.

Another thing to be thankful for, he decided.

He lay still, feigning unconsciousness, wishing they would just go away. They were mumbling, but for reasons he wasn’t sure about, he couldn’t hear what they were saying.

“Wetin una dey do dia?” said a voice.

Chibuzor’s eyes flew open; the police had come! He stretched his hand, groping for the iron grating of the compound. He found it and pulled himself up, at the same time forcing his swimming vision to focus long enough and seek out who it was that had spoken.

What he saw however made him freeze halfway up.

A figure, a tall and dark figure stood not too far away from the left of Chibuzor. It was what this man was wearing however that made Chibuzor freeze. It was impossible to tell what he looked like because his head was covered with a hood, leaving his face in shadow. He was wearing a dark-colored hooded shirt with a huge, white skull and crossbones printed on the front of it. His hands were wrapped in white bandages; like a boxer would have on before putting on his gloves. Dark-colored jeans and ankle-length black and white Converse sneakers completed his ensemble.

He looked out of place considering the evening heat; there was nothing friendly about the way he stood, in the way darkness somehow clung to him.

The thieves looked at each other and then the self-elected spokesman for the group said, “Oga, waka dey go o. Na we reach here fest. We don even obtain am finis, tomorrow fit be your – “

Chibuzor wasn’t sure what happened. One moment the tout was trying to discourage the stranger, next moment he was staggering backwards trying to keep blood in his nose with his hands. The hooded guy was standing in front of Chibuzor now.

“Oya, drop everything wey you collect back!” the man snarled.

The other touts jumped forward, the smoker pulling out a kitchen knife from the waistband of his jeans, the second wielding a plank. Hooded guy slowly moved backwards, drawing them away from Chibuzor who couldn’t believe his eyes.

God! I must have banged my head real hard, he thought.

Nevertheless, he watched as his savior sidestepped the descending plank and hit its wielder with a left uppercut. Chibuzor winced as he heard the clear crunch of teeth clashing together in a not-so-nice way. The plank wielder went down and screamed through mashed lips and blood-soaked hands. The one with a smashed nose straightened from his crouch and, grabbing the plank, joined the knife-swinger who just sent the knife towards the hooded guy’s midriff in a stabbing move.

A left forearm knocked the knife-holding hand aside and a right jab to the throat put him out of the fight permanently. The knife fell to the tarmac with a clatter and he held his throat with both hands and staggered, thudding loudly beside Chibuzor, breath rattling in his throat.

The loud blaring of a horn drowned out the coughing sounds and a danfo screamed past. “See dis mumus wey dey fight for night!!!” somebody, probably the conductor, yelled.

The plank wielder and the hooded guy circled each slowly, like boxers looking for an opening – and then the plank went up. At that moment, a sound interjected and Chibuzor realized that a phone somewhere was vibrating. The next moment he was once again focused on the tableau before him, forgetting what he’d heard.

He watched as the hooded figure moved aside to avoid the plank with a smoothness that reminded of Michael Jackson moonwalking. He blinked – and the hooded figure was close enough to the plank wielder to hug him. Instead of a hug however, the hooded figure hit him with a swift right-left combination that would have made many a professional boxer envious. In this case however, the street lights were enough illumination for Chibuzor to see the tout’s face change color – and then, he turned his head away as the tout threw up.

The tout fell to his knees and continued to throw up, blood dripping from his nose and mixing with the puke.

Chibuzor was disgusted.

“How you…are you alright?”

Chibuzor stayed against the wall, frightened into immobility. He stared as though hypnotized at the man’s face – at least, where a face was supposed to be. The man’s voice was gruff, uncultured…not too different from what the thieves had sounded like. Chibuzor didn’t move, his heartbeats thunderous in his ears.

“E for beta if you begin dey go o, because dem go wake soon,” hooded guy said, waving in the direction of the touts who were slowly moving again, holding parts of them that hurt. The tout throwing up had stopped, but he was bent over on his knees holding his stomach, rocking back and forth and making moaning noises. Chibuzor left the wall and staggered a bit, feeling for and finding a lump on the back of his head, aware his headache was now a distant pain. He looked at his savior with disbelief.

“What are you, Daredevil…or what…?”

The hood swung his way – and even though he couldn’t see inside it he felt a burning stare.

“Carry your tins dey go,” the voice from within the hood said.

There was a cold finality to the sentence that started Chibuzor moving. He looked around, and spotted his valuables scattered amongst the groaning bodies. Quickly he darted between them and scooped up his laptop, phone, wallet and twenty naira one after the other. Stashing them into his bag, he turned towards the hood who was pointing back towards the busier side of Opebi – the left side from where they were standing.

If you want gritty Nigerian crime fiction in the most unusual of forms, this is it.

We read a ton of free good stuff from Seun Odukoya year after year, from Love Drops to Four Days and a Night, For the Want of a Child, Booooom and many others, besides Saving Dapo. And we all (well, most of us) claim to love it. Now’s the time to put your mouth where your money is.

Wait, no that sounds like something out of a money ritual playbook :D, interpret it the other way around. Sha come and buy book!

Seun’s out again with Lebe this time around. And since y’all know me as a wobe (translation: unruly, streetwise) somebody, I’m sold on it already because I know it’s worth it

Lebe is the story of an amateur boxer who’s sent to prison for getting on the wrong side of a rich man and roughing up some police officers. Of course, he is forgotten there. Sometime later, he does the cousin of a colonel a favor and the colonel gets him released into his custody as a companion for the Colonel’s cripple son. Unknown to the colonel however, his son was the protégé of a murdered hero and he has been searching for a replacement. The amateur boxer, in exchange for help finding his wife and child helps rid the streets of a new designer drug and in the process, learns what it is to be a hero.

Lẹ́bẹ́ is a street-level, crime-noir pulp magazine-type publication and is now available on OkadaBooks for five hundred naira (N500) only! See link below or just download the app and buy the book. E nor too chop data 😉 .

Like this:

We all have choices, even when we think there’s none available to us. Usually, it is at that point when we think we have no options that our lives take radical turns.

My little girl was sick. I was flat out of money and my wife was an hysterical nagging mess. I couldn’t blame her, what’s a man when he’s got no money? Of what use is a vegetable of a human being that can’t even save the life of the one he loves.

“You don’t love us!” She cried.

“What am I to do? There are no jobs. The last foreman robbed me off my wages and I broke his nose in anger. Maybe I shouldn’t have but a man can only take so much from a fellow Jew. If Romans treat us like shit, should we do the same to our kin too?”

“Enough sermonising Tobias, If you channelled half the fire in you towards getting funds to treat our Hannah instead of brawling with your colleagues and losing jobs, that would be fine. Instead you just –”

“Enough of this already woman!”

“No! It would be enough when you actually do something useful. Our daughter is dying Tobias, do something!”

I’d had enough. There’s no winning her, especially when she’s right. I needed to do something fast if I didn’t want to lose our daughter to some illness that a few shekels of silver would cure. If her nagging was unbearable at that point, then I couldn’t imagine how it would be if something terrible happened to Hannah. She’s the last flicker of light in our gloomy home and anything other than a recovery would break us in half.

I needed to do something. I had to see Sirach.

We grew up together – brothers of necessity after our home in the city of Dan was sacked, our fathers killed and mothers taken off as slaves. We looked after each other, stealing what we could and surviving any way we could. In time, we grew to be known for pulling off some of the most dangerous heists in the city of Jerusalem. I only did what I could to survive but Sirach however had grander plans to rise and control some portion of the game. I was to help him, offering counsel while he called the shots and found others to get their hands dirty on our behalf. We would have been big time bosses…

But I met Edna, fell in love, and got married.

I hadn’t seen Sirach since I left with Edna. She made me turn my back on who I once was and I’m eternally grateful that I could know some semblance of peace. But like a dog going back to its vomit, I needed to call a brother from my past to help me out. When you have a child born out of love, there’s nothing you wouldn’t do to save her.

*******************************

“So you could show up after all these years. Funny how others seem so appealing when you need help, even after walking away from them because of some whore from Samaria.” Sirach said with a smirk.

I couldn’t escape his scathing tongue, not if I hoped to get his help. He took it on the wrong side when I left to build a family and the passage of time didn’t appear to have softened him one bit.

“I’m sorry Sirach. I don’t expect you to understand but I fell in love and had to make sacrifices. I’m sorry I had to turn my back on the life we had built and the dreams we had but I needed to do what I did.”

“You don’t just turn your back on one family to build another, Tobias. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have found love but you messed up brother. I know you need my help now but here’s my answer before you even tell me what’s going on and what you want from me. No.”

“But Sirach…”

“Get out Tobias, you’re not welcome here.”

I felt defeated. Sirach doesn’t dally. When he says something he means it and even I couldn’t change his mind back then without a lot of prodding. So what hope did I have when I’d walked out on him years ago, leaving sour grapes behind to ferment and stink up the situation?

I turned and walked towards the exit, imagining the look of anguish on Edna’s face and the hopelessness of Hannah.

“Wait!”

I stopped and turned.

“There’s something I can do to help but you don’t have family privileges anymore so it wouldn’t be for nothing. We just might need your skills in pulling off a job at some Roman’s home in the heart of the city. I know your daughter’s sick but you should also have kept in touch. Do this and you would have enough to take care of her and substantial change to make something of yourself. Go with Baruch here, he’ll fill you in. It’s tonight. I only hope you haven’t gotten rusty but I need not worry; you’re a natural.”

I heaved a sigh of relief but the worry didn’t still leave my face. To save Hannah, I have dip myself into the murky pit I leapt out of years ago.

********************************

We got in easy. Sirach’s men learnt from the best and their planning as well as execution was flawless. Baruch’s and the others already had the guards in the problem areas subdued and I was left to unlock the door to the treasury and avoid whatever booby traps lay in our path to the treasure.

I’d never seen so much unique stones in my life. Baruch said just one piece was worth a fortune and we had packed five bags to go with. Light enough to ensure we moved fast, worth enough to have us pretty much made for life and I began to envisage a quick recovery for my Hannah and a comfortable life afterwards.

But that was when everything went to shit.

Unknown to us, the guards that were relieved of duty were still within the premises, having a warm bath and fooling around with the maids. When they were moving out, one of them noticed that the replacements that had been subdued by Baruch and the others were not at their posts. We couldn’t run without putting up a fight. It was bloody, and by the time it was over, Baruch was dead with most of the men, two others escaped with some of the loot.

I was knocked unconscious and by the time I came to, I was chained up in a dungeon with some guy named Joab who told me everything that happened.

Life was pretty much over for me. Robbing a Roman and getting caught is death at the worst and slavery at best, but Baruch killed two guards so I could only hope for the former. I was going to die but it would have been fine because I did what I could to save my daughter.

However, nothing broke me more than when Edna showed up in a week later – puffy eyed from crying – to tell me that Hannah died two days earlier because she didn’t have any money to get her to the physician.

********************* *************

Pain.

Intense, constant throbbing shot up my feet and hands but I couldn’t do a single thing about it. I thought the whips were bad. I thought I would pass out and just die but I didn’t. Death would have been a mercy I didn’t deserve yet after all that had happened.

I looked over to my left. Joab seemed to be oblivious to what I was going through and was busy yelling curses at the Romans and anyone in sight from his new pedestal.

“Calm down Joab, save your strength.”

“For what exactly; to just hang here like some scarecrow in a farm for people to point at and kids to stone? No, I’ll rather go with a bang than a whimper. Let these Romans know they didn’t break this Jew like they have done the others.”

In the few days I spent with him, I realised Joab couldn’t be reasoned with so I let him be. Beyond the physical pain I endured, I could never get the thought of Hannah’s loss out of my mind. It tortured me. I hoped to see her again but how’s that even possible with what I did? As the scriptures said, I would end up in Sheol while my innocent child would be with Yahweh.

Then they brought him. Somehow, from high up he seemed different. He didn’t fight or stare down the Romans when they whipped him. He let them do whatever they wanted – even when they stripped him down and cast lots to share his clothing. In a way, there was some inevitability about him, like he wanted them to do it.

He said nothing.

When they nailed him and raised him to be between us, he just hung his head and breathed slowly, waiting for the end to come. When he said he was thirsty some soldiers fixed a sponge soaked in cheap wine to him on a stalk of hyssop and further mocked him.

That was when it hit me. This was the Galilean everyone had told stories about. If only I had sought him out to save Hannah when I heard he was in Jerusalem instead of going to Sirach. But he looked so ordinary beside me that it was hard to believe he had as much power as people ascribed to him.

Seeing a new target he could mock despite being in the same situation, Joab began to direct his insults at the Galilean.

“Aren’t you the Messiah they say you are? Save yourself and us!”

I didn’t know what made me speak but it felt right standing up for someone. Joab was a killer and had no right to say the things he did.

“Don’t you fear God? You received the same sentence as this man but we did what we did. We deserve our place here but this man, I doubt it. He has done no wrong!”

I looked at the Galilean, still silent with his head bent, his eyes focused on a few women below and a young lad he would later address as John.

“Remember me Jesus, when you come as King!”

Jesus raised his head, smiled at me and said, “I promise you that today, you will be in Paradise with me.”

At about midday, the sun stopped shining and a strange darkness enveloped the countryside for a few hours and the earth shook violently. Suddenly, Jesus cried out and died. Some hours later, I closed my eyes and succumbed to the kind of gloom that shrouded the city. I died.

I thought it was over. But when a strange kind of bright light washed over me like the sun does when someone opens the curtain covering your window, I stirred awake. I looked around and realised I wasn’t alone. A multitude of bodies began to float, as I did towards the source of the light that I later knew to be Jesus. His face shining brighter than the day ever did, adorned with that same smile he cast upon me on the cross before we died.

That was when I understood what was going on.

Dying he destroyed our death, rising he restored our life.

The darkness was no more. I was going to live again; I was going to see my little Hannah.

****************************************

3AM. Lagos, Nigeria.

I’d just had the strangest dream and it was as if I’d seen it before. Nursing a cup of water while trying to figure out what it was all about, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I needed to write about it and try to recreate what I’d seen before it became clear.

I sat down at my desk, set my glass down and welcomed the shiny grin of my computer coming to life. The first thing my out-of-hibernation computer displayed as I unlocked it stopped me for a bit. But it wasn’t bad at all; if anything, I knew I needed to write and I know exactly what I had to share.

The Gospel according to Luke

I smiled, closed the window, opened up Microsoft Word and began to type.

Like this:

Remember that wedding in July, the one where Seyi got married to Wande? Maybe it’s crazy but that moment’s forever etched in my mind. Maybe it’s because it’s the first one I’ve ever been deeply involved in – I was one of his groomsmen. Maybe it’s because of what I saw that day when the couple took their vows.

I was seated in front with the other guys when this happened. It was really beautiful watching Seyi and Wande take those vows but I wasn’t really looking at them. I saw you instead, in that resplendent white gown, looking into my eyes with nothing else but pure affection in your eyes as I vowed to love, hold, cherish and protect you for the rest of my life.

I saw our wedding that day.

So what happened? Just two more years down the line and we’re in pieces – with the shards set to cause more damage at any attempt to put them back together again – like two people in a Humpty Dumpty relationship. I was a fool and you were just plain silly at times.

You wanted me to talk more. I do talk, but I’d carved a cave where I stuck my innermost feelings, passions, fears and hopes into. That’s the part of me that you wanted to see the most and you did try. I’ll give you that; you badgered, pleaded and coaxed me to let it out. I’d almost get to that point where I finally let you in but then you tune off and disappear and the hurt of finding you at that crucial point and not meeting you waiting where you said you would made me recede even further.

So I would express myself the best way I could, by imagining how things should be – just as I imagined myself making those vows. We’d have a lot of conversations, half of them in my head but they’d seem so real that I would wonder why you still didn’t get me. To me, you should know why I’m the way I am. Why I act the way I do. Why I only keep real conversations at the simplest, most mundane level. I thought I told you so you should know. But you didn’t know; you couldn’t have known because half of what I told you about how I am was all stuck in my head.

I should have been gentler with you, more patient. I shouldn’t have treated you like you should automatically get me – like some sort of robot that I act like. You’re human, I am too but it beats me why I don’t act like one. Why I’m rarely excited or enthusiastic about anything. Like I’d been here before and seen it all so I’m bored with the world and the people in it. But I’m interested…sometimes; I just don’t know why my emotions on the inside don’t translate to my expressions on the outside…sometimes. You almost get me to the point where these two become one but you’d give up right at the most crucial moment and I’d fall back.

You would reach for me before I fall and I would reach for you just as I fell to grasp your nothing. No hands, no straws. So I got used to falling, deeper into my shell.

I could blame you for this but if there’s anything I’m grateful for, it’s a keen sense of perspective. So I could say you were lazy, not so committed or just playing games with my heart but I’m a difficult person to love as well. I’ve got no problems loving, I like imagining being loved but the thought of it happening in reality, seeing pure love radiate through someone to me scares the living shit out of me. If I’d be nice to myself I’ll just say that I’m not meant to be loved. But I’m not so nice to myself either. Put simply, I’m insufferable as fuck.

So when you told me you cheated, I was broken. I fell apart like the contents of a toppled hourglass but as hard as it was for me, I was hopeful. I felt that the fault was meant to be a shared burden. Maybe it was at this nadir that we could have finally gotten everything back on track. So I wanted to know what the problem was. Was it me? Was I not as attentive, caring or passionate as you would have liked? I probably wasn’t. Was it my inability to be really there for you? It was probably because of me. So I felt that the solution was in the knowing. To you, the weight and shame of the initial confession was more than what you could bear. Still I wanted to know, for my sake and sanity. For our sakes.

And this has always been my problem. You’ll give a little taste and I’d always want more of what you’re reluctant to offer. You still expected me to chase even when it was obvious you (and I) were going nowhere. I on the other hand expected you to keep up with me. Whatever it was, I don’t know. In the end, we’d run off in different directions without realising the chasm we were creating would be too wide to bridge. And now that we’re done running, we’re too spent to find our way back together.

I’m not a bad person, you know this. But I’m kinda messed up. I hurt people – I don’t agree but they say I do. I wonder how. They’ll read different meanings to my intentions or motivations for leaving people alone. I think people are confused: they want to be with you and they want to be alone as well. I have this problem but my awareness of the fact is already half the solution. People always leave dear. So I wondered why you didn’t even after all this. But it’s not that hard to figure out. I say to myself that I’m done with you every time. Then I see you and just want the shared moment at that time to linger forever.

People always leave and I let them. Why you’re still in this messed up relationship, I don’t know. I don’t love you any less and I even think I’m undeserving of you. But then, it’s never okay knowing just half the story – that’s torture. Completing it is my way back to you and as much as I want to, I can’t jump that far. I’ve got to retrace this bit by bit and this tip of the iceberg that you’ve given me isn’t enough. In fact, I believe it’s sinking our Titanic. And this is why I’m doing what I’ve never done before.

I’m leaving you.

I don’t wanna hurt foreverI don’t wanna keep on feelingI just wanna say what we both knowI’m letting you let go…

Like this:

Family is overrated. Those who say that blood is thicker than water could not be more wrong than those who said the earth was flat. Blood is thick, but only in relation to what it is meant for. Blood is blood. Water is water. Piss off if you think there’s a relation to using the relationship between these two elements to describe familial bonds.

We’re all alone in this world. We came alone. We only make alliances that benefit us for a stint or stretch of time. Family is one of those alliances. Long running, yes; but overrated as heck.

I realised this when my sister threw me out. My sister. Far from our home back in Abia, we were supposed to be all we had to ourselves in this unforgiving city of Lagos. And what did I do to deserve it? Nothing that would warrant an eviction. But I get it, big sis needed her space and I was cramping it. Besides, how could I, the last child in the family go toe to toe with my elder sister during arguments when I knew she practically held all the aces?

I had nowhere else to go. My sister decided that the best way to punish my feistiness and big mouth was to throw me out and really show who’s boss. My brother beats me at will when he can’t offer a superior argument. I’m a woman and I shouldn’t talk back to men; it is his responsibility to teach me with his fists before my future husband gets the honour –just so he wouldn’t conclude that my family did not train me well.

I couldn’t go to him. There’s no comfort in his presence because he would only mock me and I wouldn’t take it on the chin. The end result would be a black eye the next morning and sore joints so I passed on another lesson about how the good gift of pain could make me a good woman.

It was 10PM. I lived in Ajah with my sister. Getting out was not exactly easy at that time of night and my closest friends lived on the mainland. So I called Osita to see if I could spend the night at his place before figuring out my next move when day broke.

He felt like a safe option. We were close. We should have been closer but I didn’t want what he wanted at the time. A month later, he found a girl he liked and we moved on like nothing happened. He was the only friend I had at the moment.

Osita was happy to help. He knew my struggles and my pain. Once, he was so angry when he saw my bruises that he wanted to go after my brother but I stopped him. It would only have gotten me into more trouble for involving an outsider in our family drama and I’d suffered enough already.

But you never know with men. His mattress was on the floor of his room and he said he would sleep on the rug so I would be more comfortable. But he wasn’t on the floor when I woke up a few hours later to find his hand cupping my right breast, fingers kneading my nipple the way someone would tune a transistor radio.

I jumped like the bed was on fire. Caught in the act, Osita’s face was a brief mask of shame under the dim green night light in the room. He said he couldn’t contain his feelings for me; I was irresistible and had a hold on him that even his girlfriend didn’t have. He would break up with her if I gave him a chance with me. All he wanted to do was be with me and feel my warmth against the harmattan chill.

He tried to kiss me but I held back. Rather than let it go, he grabbed me. I would feel differently about him if we made love, he said. He’d always wanted to make me feel like a woman, he said. All I needed to do was to let him.

You never know with men. That was my mistake; mistaking his kindness towards me and willingness to remain in my life despite the rejection as signs of maturity. I’ve been in this situation before and I didn’t win – the blows made me submit.

This was different. I let him do it. Like a peaceful rainforest assaulted by bulldozers, I let him part my legs and invite himself into me. It was different. There were no blows.

The next morning, Osita barely said a word to me beyond a murmured apology and the devil using him. He wouldn’t have touched me if I wasn’t his weakness and being the man that he was, he succumbed. He told me to drop his key under his doormat when I was ready to leave; his girlfriend was coming to spend the weekend.

There were no blows then because I couldn’t fight. I only had a big mouth which got me into trouble with my brother and sister so I kept it shut for the time being. I let him do it. What I wouldn’t do is to let him get away with it like the others did.

Like this:

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Err… so about me :)

*Sigh* I hate bios.
Anyway, Self Discovery is a process so I see myself as a book half unread. One important detail though; I love the written word - that's one thing I live for. I'm either reading someone's work (in a bid to make it better or just to enjoy it) or writing something of my own. This is what I do for a living as a Writer/Journalist/Editor.
When I'm not working, I can be found courting 'friendly fire', engaging in positive arguments, whopping ass on the latest version of FIFA (and getting whooped in return), watching a movie, taking a dive or sleeping. People say I'm crazy too - something I vehemently object to, although I believe lucidity can be a good thing sometimes.
Everything I'm not makes me everything I am...